Butte projects in line for fire fee funding

Revenues collected from the rural fire prevention fee may see their way back to Butte County in the form of fuel thinning projects, even as other planned expenditures of said money are currently under state investigation.

Money from the annual $150 fee could be used for two fire fuel reduction projects in Butte County by the California Conservation Corps — near Kelly Ridge Road and Canyon Drive in Oroville and around Coutolenc Park in Magalia.

While nobody has cried foul about that, there has been vocal concern about Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to use fee revenues to permanently fill 10 positions on Cal Fire's Civil Cost Recovery Program, which investigates causes of wildfires and pursues monetary damages from those found responsible.

Many rural Butte County residents are hit by the annual fee. Under law, revenues generated from it are only to be used for fire prevention projects.

As for currently undisputed plans for fee revenues, the Chico satellite of the CCC is awaiting approval for the two $50,000 projects, funded entirely by fire prevention fee revenue. Both focused on fuel thinning and similar preventative measures, said Keith Welch, project coordinator.

These projects are being evaluated against proposals from other CCC centers statewide for a prevention fee revenue pool of about $1.5 million, said Susanne Levitsky, public information officer for CCC. The demand from these proposals totals more than $2.3 million, so the choices are being made carefully.

"I'm hoping it's helping some of the smaller agencies get some work done that they might not have done otherwise," Levitsky said.

Both projects could start within the next 30 days if approved.

Announcements made by the Department of Finance Monday showed that fees were to be used in wildfire investigations caused alarm among those who didn't think that funding was legal under the law that enacted the fee, AB 1x 29.

But Cal Fire thinks it is an appropriate use.

"We feel it's appropriate because of the deterrent nature of law enforcement and how law enforcement fits in with fire prevention," said Janet Upton, Cal Fire's deputy director of communications.

It's noteworthy the program returns substantial revenue to the general fund after expensive fires, she said. The initial cost of the program about five years ago was about $2.5 million.

"Since we've had that in place, we've recovered over $93 million to the state's general fund," Upton said.

But early opinions from the Office of Legislative Counsel consider the funding arrangement, if enacted in the proposed state budget, to be illegal under current law.

Lia Moore, a budget analyst with the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office, said it sought the opinion.

"The opinion we got from counsel was kind of two-fold. One was that the cost recovery program activities aren't clearly outlined in the legislation that enacted the fee.

"The other argument/concern was the fire fee needs to be a fee, not a tax — currently, as a fee, benefits must go directly to those fee-payers."

The fee itself continues to face challenge after challenge, with a pending lawsuit from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association on the way and a current non-compliance rate of 23 percent. Bills for the 2013-14 payment are expected to go out in March.

Legislation to change the fee is also coming through. AB124, introduced by Assemblyman Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga, was opened for referral to a committee on Thursday and would outright repeal the fee if passed. Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Rocklin, introduced three bills that would eliminate the fee or create exemptions from the fee.

Brown himself proposed a bill to re-designate the fee as a tax in order to expand its usage outside of fee-payer areas, but the proposal no longer appears on his website.

The state projects that the next fiscal year's fees should garner about $90.8 million. But as of Jan. 11 less than $68.5 million has been collected for the current fiscal year.